“We should work to live, not live to work”, declared John McDonnell in his speech to the Labour Party Conference. He followed this up with a commitment to the goal of a 32-hour, four-day work week. The goal, McDonnell stated, was to be achieved within ten years, and importantly, was to be realised with no loss of pay.
The reduction of the
working week to four-days would be truly transformative. Indeed, it would
represent a radical break with the dominant work culture that exists in our contemporary
capitalist society.
Yet, its radicalism
also presents challenges. Will business accept a cut in the working week? What
kind of legislation will be required to achieve the cut? Ultimately, can
capitalism be adapted to accommodate a four-day week or will it require us to imagine
– and create – a future beyond capitalism?
The case for working less
The arguments for
working less are compelling. Shorter work hours would free up time for us do and
be things outside of work. It would enable to live better lives.
Evidence shows how longer
work hours are associated with various forms of sickness – both physical and mental. The reduction of work hours, in this case, could
help to raise the health and well-being of workers.
Beyond personal
benefits, we could mitigate the effects of climate change by working less. The work-spend treadmill has an
environmental cost that we could resolve
by curbing the time we devote to work.
Less work could
also pay for itself by giving rise to higher productivity. Rested bodies and
minds make for more productive hours and offer the opportunity to produce what
we need with more free time.
Finally, we might
also work better. If we eliminate hours of drudgery, we
could leave more time for us to enjoy more rewarding work. Reducing working
hours is as much about enhancing the quality of work as about reducing its
burden.
Work’s persistence
But the system in
which we live keeps on pressing us to work more. It was once assumed that
capitalism would develop in ways that would deliver shorter work hours. Back in
1930, the economist John Maynard Keynes famously dreamed of a 15 hour work week by
2030. He thought that
this outcome would be achieved through c no fundamental reform of capitalism.
In reality, however,
hours of work in capitalist economies have remained stubbornly high and have even
shown signs of increase (especially since the global financial
crisis). Large
differences in work hours exist between countries, to be sure. German workers enjoy shorter work hours than their US counterparts, for example.
But no country
stands anywhere close to achieving a 15- or even 30-hour work week in the next ten
years. Indeed, on current trends, most capitalist economies look set to have
average working weeks more than double Keynes’s prediction.
The reasons for this
stagnation in work hours are varied. On the one hand, there is the issue of
power. Workers cannot hope to secure shorter hours if they lack the bargaining
power to realise them. The decline of unions and shift towards the ‘shareholder
value model’ of management has resulted in
many people working longer, or the same hours, for lower pay.
On the other hand,
the continued force of consumerism has acted as a prop to the work ethic.
Advertising and product innovation have created a culture where longer hours
have been accepted as normal, even while they have inhibited the freedom of
workers to live well.
Making it happen
The challenge for
any political party that is committed to the goal of working less is to overcome
the above obstacles. Notably, the Labour Party has rejected an economy-wide
curb on work time. Instead, it favours a sectoral approach, via a renewed
system of collective bargaining.
McDonnell has suggested
that working hours (along with wage rates and conditions) could be agreed at a
sector level through negotiation between employers and trade unions. Any
agreements brokered on reduced working hours could then become legally binding.
This approach, in some ways, follows the lead of collective bargaining arrangements
in Germany, where employers
and trade unions have agreed on shorter working weeks.
The problem here
will be reviving collective bargaining in the context of low union membership.
Some sectors in services (such as the retail and care sectors), for example,
have a very limited union presence and curbing work hours may be difficult to
achieve under this policy.
McDonnell has also proposed
the creation of a ‘Working Time Commission’ with the power to recommend the
government increases statutory leave entitlements as quickly as possible
without increasing unemployment’. This is more promising in that it aims to
create a new debate – and ideally a new consensus – around the case for
shortening work time across the economy as a whole. One effect of this
Commission might be the recommendation and implementation of a four-day work
week in all sectors.
A wider policy
agenda for shorter work hours is set forth in a new report written by Lord Skidelsky, which was commissioned by McDonnell.
While there are areas to disagree on, the report itself – and the policy
commitment of the Labour Party – mark a significant step forward in the
discussion of reducing work time. Generally, there now seems greater pressure to secure a four-day or
even three-day work week.
Still the barriers
to change remain formidable. As seen in the reception by industry groups
to Labour’s policy announcement, business will take some convincing about the merits of a shorter
working week.
But the scepticism
of business only shows how far we need to rethink the economy and life more
generally. If we continue to work as long as we do, we will not just keep on damaging
ourselves, but also our planet. Working less, in short, is not some luxury, but
a necessary part of our progress as human beings.
** This article first appeared at the Conversation
